Art Museum Apps for Kids
Independent Developer's Art Museum Assets Apps for Kids
Free Solution Anyone Can Use
I just returned from the Virginia Docent Exchange at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Va. Two other docents and I were representing the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College. At the conference I had the opportunity to present a session about iPads, kids and art museum related apps.
Chrysler Museum
This was my first visit to the Chrysler Museum which was recently renovated. It is beautifully situated on a body of water known as the Hague in downtown Norfolk, VA. The museum was originally founded in 1933 as the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences. It changed names in 1971 when industrialist Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. donated his extensive collection to the museum.
We arrived at the museum early on Sunday afternoon so we would have a few minutes to visit their collection before the conference started. I was pleased to find this in their collection.
 |
| Standing Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Guanyin Pusa), 19th century, China. Chrysler Museum Photo credit: Kristin Harris |
Kids, iPads and Art
It was nice to be addressing a group of individuals who all share my passion for kids, art and education. Docents, as you know, are museum volunteers. We are not compensated financially for our work. There are many benefits, of course which drives the enthusiasm and dedication of docents at museums all over the world.
I was interested in sharing my research and app development with the audience, many of whom are not technology enthusiasts. Many of us are older women, as a population not known for braving the digital universe. I was on a quest to inspire some exploring.
Art Museum Apps for Kids
NGAkids
Free
The first apps I demonstrated were those made by museums, as opposed to the second group which included apps by independent developers.
What better way to start than with NGAKids. This app is very silly and lots of fun. All that while introducing a variety of artists and encouraging viewers to make their own art.
There are eight activities based on artwork in their collection. The first, and my favorite is making your avatar. On the fly you are adding heads, hairdos, accessories, pets and clothing to the character who will be your companion throughout the app. To top it off, after you have created your avatar or let the app do it for you, you can make it dance around.
The remaining activities are a bit more serious based on artworks by Edward Hicks, Fitz Henry Lane, Berthe Morisot, Franz Kline, Josef Albers, Mark Rothko and Robert Rauschenberg. A canvas is the last activity for free drawing with a variety of tools. Any of the creations can be saved to a gallery.
MoMA's ArtLab
Free
ArtLab was the first art museum app I saw for kids, a number of years ago. It is sleek and a bit more educational and somber. There are two major jumping off points in the app. A light bulb icon jumps to seventeen activities using a set of geometric shapes (organic shapes can be added later) and a pencil. These are presented to stimulate creativity. The first is, "Experiment with stretching, turning, shrinking, and layers shapes." The resulting artwork can be saved in the gallery.
My favorite prompts are in the section indicated by a pencil and a pair of scissors, seen above. It was especially cool to draw from instructions, a la Sol LeWitt. The activity based on the Bryce Marden image combined text, audio and art.
ArtSwipe
Free
As the Los Angeles County Museum of Art explains on their website "
This free app for iPad and iPhone is part of our Artists Respond series, inviting contemporary artists to create digital media projects inspired by exhibitions and works on view at LACMA. The app, conceived by Jody Zellen, was developed to coincide with the exhibition In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States. Inspired by the "exquisite corpse" parlor game popular amongst early 20th century surrealist artists, the app allows users to create their own collages, using images from LACMA's collection and photographs from the camera roll.
I love playing with this app. You have a choice between a large number of images from their collection or adding your own from your camera roll. Here is an example of my play.
Art Museum Asset App from Independent Developers
As an independent developer creating apps with museum assets, I am always on the lookout for similar products by fellow developers. I discussed these in my presentation.
PlayART by Tapook
$3.99
This app has been around awhile too and spawned a series more. It is simple, elegant and fun.
Eight artists and images on their work are presented for the used to select. When an artist is selected, pieces of his work are placed at the bottom of the page. They can be added to the blank canvas in the middle to create "original" work with pieces from the master.
This is the beginning of my "work" combining pieces of Hokusai's art. At the top of the page are all of the variations that can be made after an images is added to the canvas; flip, erase, enlarge, lock or paint over. These creations can be saved to a gallery and shared.
The Alice App
$4.99
I was intrigued when I first learned of this app because the developer was combining 15th and 16th century art to illustrate the well know story of Alice in Wonderland. My anticipation was perhaps greater than my satisfaction on downloading the app, but still worth a look.
Duck Takes A Ride:An Art Story
$1.99
This is our first app released in 2013, updated in 2014. I was inspired by animal sculpture from ancient Chinese and Egyptian. This story with animation and interactivity is designed for preschool children. It's about life on the farm.
Meet the animals.
They all love riding around in horse's cart. Take a jaunt around the farm with them.
We worked with object from the collections of the Portland Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to create this app.
$2.99
Players can advance through the alphabet in alphabetical order or by selecting their favorite letters.
This scene gets jazzy with a music track and animation.
When selected, this quail does this...
$2.99
Our latest preschool app features 10 sculptures from a variety of world cultures. Each art object can be explored in four different activities involving different skill sets and interactivity.
Here are the ten "players" and the activities for exploring each one. These art treasure are from five continents and are in the collections of the Portland Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, Walters Art Museum, National Gallery of Art and LACMA.
 |
| Helmet Mask (Zogbe) for Sande Society, Brooklyn Museum (Animated) |
This helmet mask is animated once it is revealed.
How can anyone with access to an iPad help students/visitors create media with museum art?
I wanted to provide docents/teachers with an accessible approach to helping students/visitors create their own art museum media. Shadow Puppets is a great solution. It is a wonderful iPad app that allows the user to collect images and put them into a project that can be viewed as a video file on an iPad and shared with other. The real power of this app is that within the app itself are links and search functionality to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Library of Congress, The British Library, NASA, NOAA, Flicker Creative Commons, Wikimedia Commons and more as well as the iPad's Camera Roll.
When you open Shadow Puppet, you see a few samples (some are mine, this is were projects are stored) they have created for you (the fish video is fun and informative) and a Create New button.
This is where Shadow Puppet really shines. There is direct access within the app to all of the resources mentioned above that you see to the left of the screen. I searched the Metropolitan Museum of Art digital archives for images of Buddha. This is what popped onto the screen. Obviously wi-fi access is necessary for this operation.
The user simply taps on the desired images and they load into pages indicated on the bottom left. Text and audio can easily be added to each page.
Shadow Puppet also allows access to the iPad's Photo Gallery. Museum visitors can use the camera on the iPad to shoot images in the collection and create their own curated collection of art, with commentary. The finished product is a video that can be shared.
iPads Are Amazing Tools for Arts Education
How are you using them?
No comments:
Post a Comment